


Cognitive Therapy

by Glenmore



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Grief, M/M, PTSD, Recovery, That's Dr Watson to you, a runcible spoon, st barts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 19:26:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15298404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glenmore/pseuds/Glenmore
Summary: Post series 3. No Mary, no baby, no murderous sister.Both Sherlock and John have been through a lot. Their emotional and physical scars are preventing them in forming a happy partnership so each works out an unconventional yet effective form of therapy to get their relationship on track. Needless to say, Sherlock’s is far more risky.





	Cognitive Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> Post series 3. No Mary, no baby, no murderous sister. 
> 
> Both Sherlock and John have been through a lot. Their emotional and physical scars are preventing them in forming a happy partnership so each works out an unconventional yet effective form of therapy to get their relationship on track. Needless to say, Sherlock’s is far more risky.

Cognitive Therapy 

 

They had missed one another so sorely, but when John came back to Baker Street, neither he nor Sherlock fooled themselves: it could never go back to what it had been. Their time apart had been fraught, to say the least. 

They were changed men. 

They were older, wiser, more damaged. 

Still, to be together, even damaged as they were, was satisfying. 

Sherlock had changed in practical ways. He could cook now, and surprised John more regularly with such fare as poached eggs on toast, pumpkin soup and on one momentous occasion, soda bread. 

“Sherlock,” John asked with a full mouth, his lips glazed with butter, “I don’t understand how you can suddenly cook.” 

Sherlock was nonchalant.

“It’s just chemistry, really, isn’t it? A portion of a powdered grain, some form of fat to dampen it, an egg to bind it, sugar to flavour it, a form of soda to make it expand under heat – cooking is just chemistry.” 

John no longer has to rebuke him when he suspects his questions aren’t being answered properly. He has perfected the warning gaze and Sherlock responds briskly.

“I was alone for two years, John. There were times when I had to make food or I would have died of malnutrition. I googled something like easy food and oddly enough found it could be quite interesting to prepare simple meals.” He popped a small portion of buttered soda bread into his mouth. “Except things with tomatoes.”

“You don’t like tomatoes?” John’s surprised. He didn’t know.

Sherlock crinkles his nose delicately. “They offend me more than I can describe.” 

John is also a different man. His health has much improved: he sleeps soundly these days, his legs are strong and his hands are still and calm. Sherlock thought, in their first days back together, that John had completely recovered from his post-military trauma and his post-Mary trauma, until the day he came upon John ironing his shirts. 

Instead of ironing the garment to drape on a hanger, John ironed everything into neat folded squares, squares that could be packed in a suitcase. 

Sherlock waited until John was at work and checked. Sure enough, John had never unpacked his clothes, nor indeed any of his belongings. Everything was neat in duffel bags, ready to be whisked away at a moment’s notice. 

John’s friendly, if somewhat detached bravado disintegrated rapidly when Sherlock made some gentle inquiries. 

“Because if I need to get away quickly I can. It just makes me feel better, okay? And I know it is utterly pointless for me to say this at all but for pity’s sake - stay out of my fucking room.” 

“Very well,” Sherlock answered. 

“Thank you. Right. Any chance of that soda bread for dinner?” 

“There’s an excellent chance. Did you have any good patients today?” 

It’s an old favourite: Sherlock loves to hear the symptoms and deduce the circumstances of the illness John treats. John loves to correct or concur. It is something from the old days, one of the things they had before everything flew off the roof of St Barts. 

Sherlock pounds a sticky dough while John tells him about a swollen trachea, a perfectly split heel, two broken fingers that were an astonishing shade of teal and a new baby with an inflamed belly button.

It is possible they would have lived like this forever - Sherlock trying to nest, John ever-ready to take flight – if they had not stumbled on a way forward. 

***

They had been back together at Baker Street for five weeks when the next big case came in. Sherlock was beside himself. John was at work, but no matter, Sherlock decided while he simultaneously processed seven other thoughts. John can meet me at Bart’s this afternoon. 

It was a great case. There were blood clots to examine, hair strands to stretch, wounds to probe and catalogue, blades to measure and a mouthful of broken teeth that he might be able to persuade Molly to extract for him.  
“One,” said Molly sternly. “You can have one.” 

Sherlock would have argued more vehemently had he not wanted to see the lungs, bladder and take a small sample of the spleen too. 

He chose a molar that, to his great delight, cracked in two when it was prised from the cold gum tissue. 

It was late in the afternoon when he remembered that John wasn’t with him. John loved cracked teeth, or least Sherlock thought he did. He should be here to see this one. 

_Are you coming?_

Sherlock texted him. 

John texted back some lie about being caught up at the clinic. He would see Sherlock at home. 

It was irritating but not critical. When Sherlock got home at 2am he had solved the case and felt only slight annoyance that John hadn’t been there to see that. 

When it happened the second time, Sherlock was genuinely annoyed. He had two mummified corpses with perfect teeth and the remnants of some excellent stab wounds. There was still talc-like residue in the veins, a bleached red powder reminiscent of desert sand. 

_You will love this one_

Sherlock texted his best friend, only to get a response in which John claimed to be tired and have an early morning tomorrow and sorry, you’ll have to solve it by yourself. 

Sherlock solved it in four hours and deliberately stamped around the flat when he got home so that John would still be tired tomorrow. 

“Why won’t you come on cases with me?” Sherlock asked him after he had solved the third one alone. 

“I have to work,” John answered coolly. “It’s not always convenient.” 

“Do you not want to work with me any more?” 

“Of course I do. The right one hasn’t come along. It’s just a matter of timing.” 

John’s inconsistent reasoning made Sherlock a little aggressive, angry like he always gets when he knows there are some facts available but he can’t quite get his hands on them. 

“Garbage. Tell me why you won’t come on cases with me. We’ve had three terrific ones, the mummified couple were extraordinary, and it would have been great to have you at the autopsy at Bart’s” – and then Sherlock saw it. Bart’s. At the mention of Bart’s John’s eyes and mouth showed microscopic twitches that no other person would have noticed. 

Sherlock pounces. “What’s wrong with the hospital? Are you worried about running into Mike Stamford? I can get Mycroft to orchestrate his transfer to the outer Hebrides.” 

He expected John to laugh but his mouth grew tighter and his eyes more sour. 

“Is it Molly? Does she disturb you? I can vandalize all the vending machines and send her out for crisps when we need the morgue.” 

But it wasn’t that either. John looked down, his lips pressed so tight they hurt. 

Sherlock grew more desperate. 

“What? What did I do at Bart’s that is keeping you away? Tell me what it is and I’ll stop it or if I can’t stop will at least modify my-" 

And John exploded. 

“You jumped off the fucking roof! I watched you jump off the roof! Then you pretended to be dead and I took your pulse and you were dead!” He leans heavily on the table and tries to restore some temperance to his grief. “I was at your funeral, Sherlock. I sat a few feet from your coffin. Do you know what that’s like, to see the coffin of someone...” 

His voice ruptures and grief surrounds them. “Then you just disappeared somewhere and made fucking soda bread and poached bloody eggs!” 

While Sherlock scrambled another apology, John rubbed his face, closed his hand over his mouth and squeezed, trapping everything else he wanted to say. They moved around one another in an awkward dance – Sherlock with his hands outstretched, still trying after all these months to reconcile, while John shook his head in a poor effort to loosen his grief. 

Nothing came and John closed it all down. 

“You know what? Just forget it. No, I mean it Sherlock, just shut up and forget it. I’m going to bed. I don’t want to talk about it again.”

Sherlock stood in the doorway, craning his neck slightly to follow him up the stairs, listening to the soft click of the door closing and the floorboards squeaking as John sat heavily on his bed. 

No one slept well that night. 

***

But it wasn’t as if Sherlock was entirely recovered either. It’s just that it took John a little longer to see it. 

He flinched whenever John touched his back, which, oddly, was often. 

“What’s wrong with your back?” John asked once or twice, although he didn’t think the back was sore. He thought that Sherlock disliked the contact and was trying to set physical distance between them. 

“Nothing. My back’s fine.” 

The flinching annoyed John. The thought of being restrained from touching Sherlock’s back made him touch it more. 

He learnt how wrong he’d been one day when Sherlock, distracted by having no cases, strolled out of the bathroom in just a towel to retrieve his phone. John’s mouth dropped open when he saw the grid of scars across Sherlock’s back. They were not marks from an accident. Someone had flogged him. 

“Who did that?” John asked quietly. 

“Did what? Put my phone here? I did, I suppose, unless you’ve taken it upon yourself to putting it in obvious places. If you did, thank you.” Sherlock held his phone up and smiled merrily, only to stop short when he saw John’s face. “What? What have I done now?” 

“Who did that to your back?” 

And when Sherlock looked as if he was inventing something, John added, “The truth, Sherlock. Tell me who did that and why.” 

Sherlock is cursing his stupidity in wearing just a towel, curses the familiar comfort that has developed between them. He talks haltingly and will not meet John’s eyes.

“I was captured by a group of henchmen who worked for a large criminal enterprise in Serbia. They beat me with chains and pipes to find out why I was trying to infiltrate them.” 

John shudders inwardly. “How did you get away?” 

“Mycroft. It was a couple of days before I came home.” 

“Did you get it looked at by a doctor?” 

“Mycroft had a nurse dress it when we got to Germany.” Sherlock flinches again when John runs his fingers over the scores. 

“Does it hurt?” 

“No. It’s just that I can still remember what it felt like and it was – well, it was unpleasant.” 

“Do you want to tell me about it?” 

“No. I appreciate that you’re curious but I’d rather not talk about it now.” Sherlock hates withholding, hates denying John such important intelligence and scrapes around his ever sorry heart for compensation. “Maybe another time when it’s more of a memory.”

John understands and nods briefly. “So the night you came to the restaurant and saw me…” 

Sherlock can’t think of a way to dilute it. “Yes, I had the wounds and yes, it hurt when you knocked me over.” 

But not as badly as your hatred of me. Not as badly as having Mary come between us to broker a resolution. 

It’s those memories that put the sad shades in Sherlock’s eyes. He walks back to his room and closes the door to dress. 

John doesn’t touch Sherlock’s back after that. 

***

For nearly two weeks they are polite, friendly but unable to traverse the gulf that’s there between them. 

It grates John. He lays awake in bed at night, reliving Mary, reliving Moriarty, reliving all the people who have tried to wrench he and Sherlock apart. 

In his mind he sees the marks on Sherlock’s back, freshly laid, wet and glittering with blood and sweat. 

To alleviate the stress, John creates scenarios where he treats the wounds himself. He imagines making a poultice, cleaning the grit from each stripe of shattered skin, preparing bandages and devising a plan for pain management so that the wounds would heal quickly and with minimum discomfort. 

His treatment plans are invariably overtaken by the same horrible thoughts: you don’t get marks like that in combat. Those wounds can only be inflicted on a restrained man. His hands have to be tied tightly, his feet have to be bound. Every time you strike he would try to get away. The torture is not only physical but also mental – the victim knows that there is nothing he can do or say to stop the beating. Sherlock was helpless and at their mercy but people who do things like that have no mercy. John clamps his eyes shut and tries to squeeze the hateful thoughts from his mind but they are indelible. It would have been agony, he would have been so helpless. 

Night after night, the squelching wounds, blood spraying from each strike – John’s thoughts become more graphic and distressing. Eventually he finds himself tied and tethered like Sherlock was, and all he wants is to heal him. 

On the eleventh night of these circuitous thoughts, John turns on his bedside lamp, swings his legs over the bed and fossicks through his medical kit. He has a small tub of sorbolene, which is not quite what he wants but it will do for the moment. 

Sherlock is awake, propped up in bed reading Peter Ackroyd’s biography of London. 

“John! What’s up?” 

“Nothing, Sherlock. Roll over.”

“What? Why – what are you doing?” 

John is weary and determined. “Just roll over for me.” 

Sherlock lays his book on the night table and does what he’s told. 

John gives him simple instructions. Put your arms up, that ‘s right. Lay still. I’m not going to hurt you. 

Sherlock’s every muscle tenses as John lifts his t-shirt, tugging it carefully until the long damaged back is exposed entirely. The terror comes back and Sherlock hates himself, his scars and his history. He wishes he could present John with something cleaner, something pleasant and inviting. 

Then he feels John’s hands, flat and covered in cool cream, gently smoothing over the scars, stroking the welts as if he could, if he were careful, make them disappear. 

“They’re not going to hurt you anymore,” he tells Sherlock quietly. “You’re safe now. If anyone tries to hurt you again, I’m going to shoot them.”

John continues to stroke in slow, deliberate sweeps, talking in that calm voice, laying a different foundation for Sherlock’s most traumatic memories one brick at a time. The strong muscles start to relax, and then soften entirely as Sherlock’s breathing grows deep. 

When Sherlock falls asleep, John carefully rearranges the shirt and bedclothes before he pads back to his room. 

He sleeps soundly too. 

The next night when he comes there is only a quick glance and instant understanding. Sherlock silently rolls over and lifts his shirt himself. The poultice is different tonight. 

“Rosehip oil,” John says softly. “It helps fade scars.” He repeats the same litany he did last night and Sherlock listens to every word. He would have been safe in Serbia if John had been there, he is certain. 

Gradually the words and the long easy strokes become intertwined. 

John’s purpose becomes clear as Sherlock’s eyes grow heavy. He wants his part in this. He couldn’t help me while I was there, but he can help now.  
He’s the only person who can. 

***

The ugly tormenting shapes Sherlock had carried around in his heart, those mean shadows always one quick step behind him, never disappeared, although they faded and disarmed as John continued his nightly rubs and quiet reassurances. 

But the shirts stayed packed, and John’s room still looked as if his occupancy was temporary. Sherlock wanted John to settle down, to ease back in against him, to come back home to the life they had shared.  
Sherlock thought about it long and hard, day after day on the couch, his hands pressed together, his eyes closed. 

The answer doesn’t come easily. 

Every plan he made revolved around the roof of St Barts. He had thought of organising a large mattress, a bungee cord, a system by which Sherlock could jump from the roof and survive and John could be there to see him. Alive. 

He walked through the possibilities up in his mind but wiped them one by one as he assessed their faults.

It wasn’t until he had devised and discarded a dozen jumping scenarios that he realised the problem: John associates the hospital with my death. He needs to associate it with my life, and more importantly, his place in my life. Our life.

To make that happen, Sherlock had no choice but to risk everything again and take a different terrifying leap. It would sacrifice all his dignity and quite possibly their friendship, but it would set John free. That, Sherlock knew, was the best he could do for his best friend.

So Sherlock talks to Molly and to Stamford and, with their assistance, the General Manager of the hospital. Mycroft kindly follows up this meeting with a persuasive phone call and the next day the General Manager finds herself with a cheque that enables her to fund the refurbishment of two wings of the maternity ward. 

She agrees to let Sherlock use the roof for one night in the coming weeks. 

Sherlock chooses a night when the moon is waxing, only because it looks more interesting as it is growing larger. 

He cooks a quiche, a tray of brownies and a large serving of peas, all of which he packs carefully in plastic dishes that he stacks in a box that was once used to transport two lungs and a kidney. He buys a thermos especially for tea, pours milk into an old jam jar that he closes with a satisfying wringing and packs it alongside two tea cups wrapped in a tea towel that he stole from Mrs Hudson.

He puts the box in the staff tearoom at St Barts. Molly writes TOXIC DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE on the lid in audible green ink. 

Late that afternoon Sherlock takes a taxi to John’s clinic and waits out the front, watching people come in and out. He stares with frank curiousity at an old man hobbling along on two walking sticks (why no walking frame? Stubborn, or another physiological reason?) then deduces the greasy hangover of a bad migraine on a businessman (electronics imports business, surely) and ovarian cysts on a young woman who appears to be reading English at university (because Sherlock refused to concede anyone would Graham Greene on purpose). 

People come and go, all of them with something to teach him. He’s interested to see how many young women are wearing corduroy this season, how many people in general are dying their hair and how many people under thirty can walk quite safely while looking at their phones. 

Perhaps, he thinks idly, we’re evolving into a species that can do anything while staring at a tiny screen. 

“Oh! Hello! Why are you here?” John has finished work and is surprised to see Sherlock waiting for him. 

He takes a deep breath. “I wouldn’t ask ordinarily, but I’m desperate, John. I need your help at Bart’s.” 

“No.” John answers instantly, his body calm but his eyes filling with wild panic. “No. I can’t. Can’t Molly help – what about Mike” -

“John, it will take a few minutes. And after that I promise I will never ask you again. It’s just – please. I am utterly desperate.”

John doesn’t agree or disagree, but gets into a cab with Sherlock and stares at his hands as the cab moves into the traffic.

Sherlock takes another deep breath and texts Molly to take the box to the roof. He can feel the anger radiating from John in hot waves. 

When they get to the hospital, John’s fury is at boiling point and he won’t look up. “Whatever this is, Sherlock, make it fast. In and out, understand?” 

Sherlock nods. “Follow me.” 

John doesn’t realise exactly where they are headed until the elevator reaches the top floor and Sherlock heads towards the fire exit. 

John halts and starts, bubbling over, fist hard and swinging. “No. You did not - no. Please tell me we are not going to – up to… no.” He paces a small circle, back and forth from Sherlock. 

“John, five minutes. Probably not even that. You can hit me when I’ve finished. Just – please. It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.” 

“Jesus Christ, your insensitivity is - it’s legendary. That you would do this – that you would even think of making me…”

He can’t finish. Sherlock cuts in quickly. 

“I know, I understand. I promise it will be quick. Please. Please.” 

The few seconds that pass are confused; Sherlock hopes against hope that John will acquiesce. Then I can fix it. I can make it better for him too. For a moment he fears that John will storm back down the corridor and back to the street where Sherlock may never see him again but when John lifts his face, it appears he lets the pain anesthetise him. His eyes and voice are flat.

“Just – let’s just get it over with.” 

The moon is rising over London and a clear, sparkling night is gradually overtaking a sky just about exhausted of sunlight. The ancient bone coloured buildings all around sit in sharp relief; the air is cold and clean.  
It is beautiful. 

John’s eyes are closed. He doesn’t want to see the ledge. “What”, he says with pitiful sadness. “What is it that only I can help you with.”

Sherlock waits for him to open his eyes but John won’t, so he takes his another deep breath. 

“You can’t stop coming here, John. I hate that I’ve made a place that’s so much a part of our lives into somewhere you dread. So I’m changing it. You won’t think of this place as the place where I died anymore. In future whenever you see or think of St Barts you’ll remember it as the place your idiot flat mate brought you to tell you that he loves you.” 

John opens his eyes, his face immediately suspicious.

Sherlock keeps talking. 

“I do. And sorry, I don’t mean like a friend. I mean like I love you like people in books and movies purport love each other. Like I could grab you and dance with you. Like I want to hold your hand when we go out together. I love you like a normal person falls in love with some one and it’s romantic and cherubs nest in the corners of their room or whatever happens. I love you like – “ 

“How long?” John asks with a stern, gravelly voice. 

“How long have I loved you?” 

“Yes.” 

Sherlock shuffles his feet slightly. This is unexpected. “Well, probably since the day we met, but I actually realised it at your wedding, although when I thought about it afterwards I remembered I really felt it the day I’d had bartitsu training and you had your first fight with the chip and pin machine.” 

John looks out at the deepening sky and the ripe edge of orange where the sun was sinking. 

“You had bartitsu training?” 

“Yes. Well, I used to. Every week.” 

John has to think back to the chip and pin fight. “What, the Blind Banker case?” 

“That’s what you called it, yes.” Sherlock tries a weak little smile. “Maybe you should have called it the Blind Consulting Detective.”

John's glare is unnerving. Sherlock searches his face but it’s blank, not a single message is there. It seems like John is a long way from him, his eyes locked on his face, mouth slightly pulled as he considers something unlikely. 

Sherlock’s heart sinks. 

“So you bought me up here to tell me that you love me?” John checks again.

Sherlock nods. “I know how badly the jump affected you and if you want me to keep saying sorry I will, but I jumped so you could keep your life. And you had your life and you did the things live people do - had a respectable job, got married, albeit to a most undeserving wench but that’s not what we’re here to discuss. What I’m trying to say – badly – is that I want you to keep having a life. I want to be a part of it. Barts is part of our life, and it was part of your life before I met you. I understand that you can’t reciprocate my feelings, but don’t let the whole wretched thing we lived through keep poisoning you.” 

“Just so I’m certain. You love me?” 

“Yes.” 

“Seriously? This isn’t some experiment, some horrible bloody trick you’re playing just to see what will happen?” 

The dark head shakes sadly. “No. I couldn’t do that to you now. I – no. I love you.”

John looks around him, still unsmiling under the darkening sky. The cold is imposing as he steps forward and wraps his arms around Sherlock tightly with no words, and when Sherlock carefully returns the embrace John lifts his face and kisses him deeply, and with great feeling. 

It makes them both slightly dizzy. The worst things that were trapped between them are set free and float off on the cold air. 

They kiss over and over, coddled by London in each direction. 

John, now mindful of the solid ground on which he stands, moves his face back slightly. “Well,” he says with an endearing awkwardness. 

Sherlock is still, his eyes closed. It is all very different to what he anticipated. “I made quiche,” is all he can think to say. 

“When?” 

“Well, seven times in the last three years, but today as well. I brought it up here. Well. Molly brought it up here. I thought you’d be angry at me and we could have a picnic.” 

“Sorry?” John is gently weaving his fingers through Sherlock’s incorrigible curls. 

“I – I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But there is quiche. And peas. And brownies, and I made a thermos of tea too.” 

As he speaks Sherlock thinks the food is one of the most stupid ideas he’s ever had but John, who will continue surprising Sherlock for the rest of their lives, is delighted. 

“You made food for us?” 

“Yes. A bit not good?” 

“No, it’s very good. I’m ravenous. Can we have some now?” 

They sit together in the centre of the roof, only a few feet from where Moriarty shot himself. 

The quiche is interesting. Half of it has slices of tomato cooked over the surface, the other half has no tomato. 

“That’s my half,” Sherlock explained. 

“You hate tomato that much?”

Sherlock nods gravely. “I loathe it. I don’t even like touching it, nasty acidic pulp that it is.” 

“Did you pack cutlery?” 

“I have packed us each a fork and a runcible spoon.” 

John grins.

Sherlock has wrapped the cutlery in little napkins, which he also stole from Mrs Hudson. English gentlemen both, they set the napkins awkwardly over their laps. 

John talks between mouthfuls of the tasty quiche. “So…runcible spoons. Are you hoping we can dance by the light of the moon?” 

“John,” Sherlock answers with a mouth full of peas, “I can assure you there is nothing I would rather do more.” 

They eat in silence for a few seconds and then John can contain it no longer. “Who would I be, the owl or the pussycat?” 

Sherlock sighs. “I’m not going to win this, am I? Tell me who you’d rather be and I’ll be the other. Although obviously I should be the owl.” 

“Which makes me the pussycat and that’s definitely not on.” John is helping himself to another slice of quiche. 

“Well, I’ll be the pussycat but I’m not wearing a bow. And I’m actually a jaguar.” 

“The Owl and the Jaguar doesn’t quite sound the same, does it?” 

“We could both be the pussycat. You could be a bob cat.” 

John tried to conjure an image of a bobcat but with no success. “Are they as cool as jaguars?”

Sherlock smiles. “Oh, definitely. Except not at all, really. But they’re brave and very smart. And they make excellent doctors.”

Their laughter rang out over the London night, and they talked for hours.

***

It was dark and cold when they packed up the empty containers. They stood up to leave, John extending a hand to help Sherlock to his feet. 

“Were you frightened, when you jumped?” 

“A bit, yes. There were a lot of things that could go wrong.” 

John is silent and Sherlock finally understands everything that he did wrong, all the things he hadn’t planned for. 

He stops before John and holds him place with one hand on his face. 

“I didn’t think of all the sentiment things. I only planned for the operational things and I know now that was a mistake. When I did it, I did it for you. Moriarty was going to hurt you. He told me he would burn the heart out of me and the stupid thing was, he knew exactly where my heart was before I did. I know you’ve heard me say sorry, but I want you to know that when I say sorry now – here, tonight - I mean that I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you, and I’m sorry for the huge gap between us. I’ve missed having you close. I miss it everyday. I’m sorry- truly sorry – that I did that to what must be one of the greatest friendships available to anyone.”

John stands tall and confident, staring straight into Sherlock’s eyes as he lays his hands on his shoulders. “Thank you. I know what you mean. I don’t like it either. I want it to be like it was, and it seems like we can’t do that.” 

“No. Although I have to say, I think we’re maybe making a bit better now.”

John draws Sherlock closer, slipping his hand around his waist and turning him slightly so his face is brightened by the moon. 

“Remind me how to do this.” John looks at their feet, takes two steps forward, two back and two forward before Sherlock catches on. 

“Oh! You really do want to – oh, marvelous, no, one-two-three, two- two three and back, yes, that’s right … perfect.” 

They fall silent as they move in perfect rhythm, over to the east of London, turn to the side and face the north, then around again and dance silently to the west, and around again, over the south. 

When they get home later that night they do it again, around the living room with the blinds open this time, John not caring who sees, Sherlock not even thinking that someone might. 

And they make love, not quite as well as they will in the future but with great devotion and with more gratitude than they have done anything together. 

The next day before he goes to work John slips his shirts on hangers. When he leaves for work he leans over Sherlock to rests his hand on his back and notes the flinching has stopped. 

Soon the scars on Sherlock’s back will fade into pale pink weals; John no longer twitches at the mention of St Barts. 

They both know it will fall into place, piece by small piece. They make plans for the future privately and end up sharing them because they work best like that. John will cut back his hours and eventually leave the clinic so he can work full time with Sherlock who in turn is still half mad, half brilliant, always dazzling John with his fabulous mind. There will be soda bread and tantrums and laughter but there will be no doubt for either of them that each is loved and esteemed as he always hoped he might be. 

Best of all, St Bart’s fades as a reminder of unhappy tmes, and instead becomes their own private landmark in a matter of weeks. It's where they met, it's were they declared their love. When they pass it, or when they visit for work, one will always say, care to dance? And the other will smile, squeeze a hand or lay loving fingers on the other’s back and whisper, I don’t mind, don’t mind if I do.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story that I wrote just after series three. It was posted for a while before I took everything down. I never restored it because I didn’t think anyone would remember it, but a nice person did and asked me about it this week, so I cleaned up the typos and aligned the tenses and have re-posted it for that nice person.


End file.
